Thursday, February 23, 2017

My New Favorite Toy - Color Changing Markers

I was elated when I stumbled upon color changing markers at the Dollar Tree last week. I've heard about people using the markers for behavior plans before, but I'd never purchased a set of markers myself. They are almost $7 on Amazon, and while that's not expensive, it's throwing away $7 if your student doesn't respond well to them. But finding them for a dollar? Totally another story.

Simple concept, right? You color with one marker, and then over it you use the magical white marker. The white marker immediately turns your original color into another color. OK, that's fun, but not life changing.

Here's where it gets fun. Instead of coloring with the solid color first, write on the paper with the white marker. You shouldn't be able to where you wrote. Then color over that spot with a colored marker. Magic. Pure magic. You think you are coloring with red, but *boom* a secret message is revealed in blue.

My two year old and I played with these for almost 45 straight minutes while her older sister was in a sports class. I'd use the white "magic" marker to write a mystery letter, and then she'd color over the spot to reveal the secret letter. It's marker peek-a-boo and highly engaging.

Think of the possibilities. Write the answers to a math worksheet in the invisible marker. Once the child has solved the problem he can color over the clear spot to reveal the answer and check to see if he is correct. Word wall words can be so fun to uncover and read. Letters, numbers - any rote skill that you're trying to make more engaging can be enhanced by letting your student make it magically appear on the paper simply by coloring over a white space.

Now, where these markers are really magical is with behavior plans.
Take your normal "You need to get 5 stickers and then you earn a break" behavior plan. Instead of stickers, let the student color in a box. Before the day starts, you can pre-set the plan by coloring in a few boxes with the clear color-changing marker. At some point, when your student goes to color in his block, he will magically reveal your hidden coloring. How much more exciting does that make the behavior plan? This is perfect for kids who easily get bored with your current plans. It's much more motivating to participate when you never know when you'll uncover your magic space. You can think of something fun for your student to do on the magic space - whether it means a class dance party, or a special high-five, add in an extra twist to make it that much more fun.

This also means you can play Behavior Bingo - every day your student can start with a blank bingo board (where you've already used the color-changing marker to color in 4 or 5 blocks in a row). When your student is caught being good, or has earned his token, he can color in one block on the bingo board. He's trying to make Bingo by uncovering your secret message.

Even more fun - play Behavior Battleship. Same idea as bingo, but instead of a bingo board where your student is only trying to find 4 spaces in a row, hide 4 battleships on the board and have your student earn chances to color in a square to try to find the ships.

I haven't found them at every Dollar Tree I've been too, so they don't all carry them. But if you find them, they are worth grabbing a few boxes and adding them to your creativity teaching tool box. Sometimes it's the little things that engage our kids the most.

Monday, February 20, 2017

What is Play-Based Tutoring?

The best way to describe what I do in my private business is "play-based tutoring". I hesitate to use the word tutoring because that conjures images of sitting in a library going over homework problems, and that's far from what we're doing. But it's also the best word I have right now to label my work.

Why is play-based tutoring important?
So many of the essential skills children need for school can be taught in isolation, through a drill and skill method. I've done this with many children, and I know it's effective for teaching that isolated skill. Yet children then learn that skill in isolation, and while they are learning that skill they are not working on any other essential developmental milestone. Those moments of learning often feel like work to the child, and create a gap between fun and school. 

Play-based learning allows children to learn a skill within the context of a broader context. This encourages meaningful generalization of the skill, as the child can understand where it fits in meaningfully within the broader context.

Play-based learning also encourages the development of the whole child. Essential skills like motor planning and visual-spatial thinking are embedded into the sessions. Those Facebook posts from Occupational Therapists about why our kids can't sit still? Play-based tutoring addresses that problem by teaching through problem solving and exploring.

The concepts behind Play-Based Tutoring isn't new. Much of my work is based off of Stanley Greenspan's DIR Floortime model. I'm currently taking classes on this model and have become a bit obsessed. Whenever I use the methods I see such great results. I'm becoming a convert to how essential motor planning along with the development of strong visual-spatial thinking is to our children's process. So many difficulties can be addressed if we encourage more movement, play, and problem solving.

The Process:
In this work, I talk with parents about where their child's development is, and what skills they'd like their child to develop. One aspect about my work that is different than work in schools is building the partnership and reliance on the parents. In schools we teachers are often are the experts, and the parents tend to play an outside role. In my work, the parents are the expert on their child. They know their child better than anyone else. 

Once the parent and I have set goals for the child, I start getting creative. How can I build on the child's interests and strengths to move up the child's development and foster new skills? The goals could be anything from maintaining joint attention and engaging in two-way communication, to increasing sight words and reading strategies, or developing skills to regulate emotions.

For many of my clients I use book kits. I take one book and through the book develop fun activities that encourage the child's new skills. We use physical objects like plastic animals or toy cars to act out the story, play additional games and sing songs that correspond with the story. Everything is connected and highly engaging, and while it looks like play, it is specifically designed to work on the child's targeted skills. 


For other children, I've taken other interests and worked to intertwine those interests with what we'd like them to learn. Academic skills are embedded into fun, engaging activities like building with legos, dominoes, playing games, or making origami creations. Legos are great for learning math concepts, and I've written simple books that give the directions for building with legos or folding an origami creation. 

I'm finding it hard to fully describe what I do, and the importance of it, but I often leave clients houses excited about their development, and I find myself constantly thinking about how to incorporate more play to further engage them and increase their abilities. I love what I do, and I love helping parents see easy ways to incorporate meaningful play into their daily lives.


Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The Fight Against DeVos is Not Over School Choice

I've seen a lot of tweets and Facebook posts today saying that the left is opposed to DeVos because of her position on school choice, and that those fighting her are really fighting the rights for families who want choice. I've seen anti-teacher union posts that accuse the teachers unions of creating this controversy to make it harder for the school choice movement.

This is not the case. This is not why educators are out protesting her.

If DeVos was a knowledgeable, experienced educator who understood the delicate ins and outs of the education system but was a strong supporter of school choice things would be different. The teachers unions may still oppose her, the left may still oppose her, but there would not be such a strong outcry from your average teachers.

When she was first announced as the president's pick, many of us were weary about her politics, but we weren't protesting. If she had come to her hearing with strong arguments with why school choice and states rights were important, then we would be having a different conversation right now.

She didn't. Instead, she showed a complete lack of understanding of public schools and IDEA. Her attempt at saying that allowing guns on campus should be decided by the states was laughable. Really, really laughable. (If you are pro-states rights then at least be prepared to defend it before your hearing so you aren't saying crazy things about grizzlies and guns. Have better examples.)

We are not protesting her politics, we are protesting her qualification for the job. She is not an educator, not has she shown any attempt at trying to understand the system. She hasn't made any case for how she can make our system stronger, choice or not.

She could have shown up and made a strong case over why school choice would be better for IDEA. I've heard that argument. She could have talked about how charter schools show a stronger understanding of growth vs proficiency. I've heard that argument. I might not agree, but I would respect that argument.

DeVos didn't make those arguments. She didn't fight for school choice. She didn't prove her extensive knowledge of the education system and how she could take the current system and change it for the better under school choice.

She barely showed up. I've read that's because she's too nice, or because she's from the midwest.

I'm a nice person, I have trouble speaking in public. Confirmation hearings would be most worst nightmare. But I'd prepare. I'd get people to teach me what I  needed to know. I'd know my arguments. I would practice in front of a mirror. It's not about being nice. It's about being qualified and prepared.

This opposition is not over school choice. It's over having a credible leader. It's over respecting the education of the children in this country and investing in our future. It's acknowledging how important education is to our country.

Her confirmation hearing should have been an embarrassment to the school choice movement. Don't those of you who support school choice want someone who understands schools?


Thursday, February 2, 2017

Oh, Curious G. I love you, but it's time to start listening.

Dear Man In The Yellow Hat,

You have a lovely, curious monkey we all love very much. And curiosity is a very good thing to have. But I must say, after years of reading your books, I have some concerns.

We'll ignore the horrors that take place in the first book when you poached him out of his natural habitat and brought him home (the book was written in a different time, so I suppose I'll give you a pass for that...)

But now, after you've lived with George for a long time, you may want to consider changing your parenting behavior.

Whenever you go to a new place with George, you immediately walk away to get something and say "Be good George." The rest of us know exactly what is going to happen next. Spoiler alert: George wants to be good, but he is too curious.

The minute you leave he quickly sneaks off and gets into some sort of trouble that impacts a significant number of people in your community. We know he doesn't mean any harm, but perhaps you might want to think about not letting him out of your sight. He could come with you to get the movie tickets. He could even help you count out the money. Now he's not getting into trouble, and you are having a meaningful learning experience!

Parenting classes might be beneficial at this point. George will never change his behavior and follow your directions unless you change yours. And sir, losing him once is OK. We've all been there. Twice? OK, it's hard to keep up with a monkey. But in every single book? You have a problem that you have the power to change.

In fact, in Curious George and the Fire Fighters, he even wanders off on a school trip, switches up all the fire fighter gear, and slows down the fire truck from getting to a real fire. But in the end it is all OK because he's cute. I fear he learned this pattern of behavior (don't listen, sneak away, do whatever you want, then be cute and all is forgiven) at home.

We love your monkey, we really do. But he's influencing our little monkeys. Toddler-hood is hard enough for us parents without George as a role model for our already anti-authority tykes. Let's unite in this crazy war called parenting. Let's join forces. You set some expectations for your monkey to listen, and I'll do the same for mine.

Thank you,

A Parent (AKA the mother of "Don't call me H! I am Curious George! Call me GEORGE!!  CALL ME GEORGE!!!!" )